A Review of "The Spirit"

I'm going to try to keep this review somewhat professional, partly because that's how I was thinking about it in my head while watching this train wreck of a movie, and partly because it'll feel more satisfying in the end. Of course, it'll still be entertaining, as that's the main point, but what the hell; it's my blag, and I can do whatever the fuck I want with it. Anyways, without further ado, "The Spirit."

Let's get the good out of the way. The movie has this really neat visual aesthetic. Sure, it has all the noir goodness, and only red really stands out which is pretty pleasing to look at. There's also all these scenes and small objects that are cartoon noir, and they're pretty balls-out pretty to look at. There's certain moments in which the combination of cartoon and real is a bit poorly done, and it's really irritating to see The Spirit run around in Converse All Stars, but all in all, the noir visuals are there.

So let's move onto the plot. There's this guy who is some... thing. He looks human and acts human (stupid jackassery aside), but really, he's a zombie.

Above: The Spirit

He's obsessed with Samuel L. Jackson's character, "The Octopus," which sounds vaguely sexual throughout the entire movie. Speaking of that, there were racist undertones in the movie. There's the slutty latina, the offensively French belly dancer, and the picture of Adolf fucking Hitler (not actually of a guy named Adolf bumfucking Hitler; I'm just using "fucking" as an interjection you twits). There's something funny about a black man dressed in Nazi clothing, and I get the feeling that this was vaguely satirical. After all, he was also dressed in Japanese clothing (with an offensively Japanese background and action), and also, a pirate. Okay, so maybe I'm reading in to racist undertones here, but can someone fucking explain to me why, during the fight in the mud between The Octopus and The Spirit(not as sexy as one might think), Spirit walks away with a fairly clean face, while Ock ends up with blackface made of mud.


Above: The Octopus?

Anyways, The Spirit gets beaten to shit by Ock during one of the most ridiculous fighting sequences ever. This is what my main problem is with this movie. If you told me I had to choose a single word to describe this movie, I'd have to go with schizophrenic. The movie can't decide if it wants to be a noir film or a comedy. One moment The Spirit is pounding the living Jesus out of Octopus, and the next moment, Ock hits the fucker with a bloody toilet, whilst spewing this gold mine: "Hey, toilets are always funny."


Are you cracking up yet? Am I funny now?

The change between serious film noir and slapstick comedy continues throughout the entire fucking movie. Some of the slapstick is actually pretty chuckle-worthy, like when a robber runs facefirst into a fistful of Spirit knuckle. It was like he opened a present two days before Christmas because he's a greedy cock, and instead of getting loot, he was severely mauled by a fist made of bears. Another funny moment is when Octopus makes a bad guy that is basically a foot with a face. It's really weird and really creepy, but it's so goddamn ridiculous, you have to laugh, perhaps to prevent from crying.
The downside is that the slapstick makes you unable to take the rest of the movie seriously. I went into the movie theater expecting some noir goodness, and was given a slapstick shitpie. I thought to myself, "Well, okay, it's a pie made of shit, but it's still pie. Maybe if I try it, it won't be so bad." So I did, I tried to get into the comedy of it all, but they switch so abruptly back to noir seriousness that after biting into the pie, everything tastes like shit.

So anyways, back to the plot. The Spirit has this romantic interest from way back in the day when maybe things in the city weren't so fucking retarded, and maybe an actual murder happened without involving some flamboyantly dressed dude. So he pawns his bike to get a locket for this chick who is latina and kind of a gold digger. She likes shiny things so the pussy-whipped twit gives away what is probably his only valuable possession. And then she asks if she's his girlfriend now, but the dumb cock doesn't have any balls and denies this apparently ghastly accusation. It's kind of amazing how The Spirit makes the transformation from a pussy to a womanizing dick, but I suppose being a zombie gives you some kind of super-pimping power, you know, along with all the other superhuman bullshit.

So they end up together, then tragically split apart, and I say tragically here in a very loose sense, since they're torn apart by the most stupid bullshit ever (she's a greedy bitch). No, really, she fucking yells at the guy for not being able to buy her diamonds the size of a monkey's ball. Her life goal is seriously to get the Golden Fleece. What the fuck.

So she grows up to be Eva Mendez who is a top-notch thief and regularly enjoys photocopying her ass. She actually indirectly describes it as perfect whilst holding said photocopy, which seems really irrelevant and retarded, so I can only infer that this was merely for the part of the audience that is made up of uncomfortably pre-pubescent boys. And by the way, you actually see Mendez' ass for a split second, which, if I'm correct, a third of the audience would probably have had to excuse themselves to go to the bathroom.


Toilets are in the bathroom, guys.

This all builds to a finale in which the hero is uncomfortably close to death (as most movies most have nowadays, because it isn't truly heroic unless you beat a bad guy when you're an inch from death, which, incidentally, if you can do, why not beat the shit out of him when you're fully healthy?). There's a fight with The Spirit and Octopus, involving a grenade that explodes in a really weird manner, and then The Spirit flies away, off to save his city another day. Oh, also, there's a makeout scene that lasts like an entire fucking minute, quite enough to make the audience feel pretty uncomfortable.

That's it. That's the end of the movie. Hero beats bad guy and makes out with girl. Okay, so it's nothing groundbreaking. That's alright; I can't expect every damn movie to be revolutionary, so naturally, the goodness has to be in the execution, which is, unfortunately, a big plate of bullshit and chips.

Like I said, the inconsistency of the movie's tone is pretty jarring, which makes me wonder whether or not it was intended to be satirical. Maybe the movie is making fun of noir films, and I guess that's artsy or something, but I go to the movies to be entertained, and when your message overpowers the entertainment value of the movie, it comes off as pretentious. If that isn't the case, then I guess the director must've taken comedy and noir writers and had them make retard babies in Alabama for their writing team. You know how they say having enough monkeys in a room with typewriters and they'll miraculously type out Shakespeare? This was kind of like that, except with more shit-flinging and pies thrown after Hamlet dies.

The characters are pretty awful, and you're really only inclined to barely like The Spirit and The Octopus. The Spirit, as a womanizing dick, simply oozes charm, and I guess we kind of have to admire the ease with which he can insert his massive erection into every situation without lubricant. Yet he goes into stupid monologues in his head and has a shitty romantic interest. No, wait. He has a legitimate one which he dated before he became The Spirit and is all kinds of good to him now even though she doesn't know who he is, but he's too much of a cock-driven moron to actually do anything. Not that she'd be much better than the gold-digging whore; either way you end up with a bland stereotype. I can kind of see why he would objectify them all.

The Octopus, on the other hand, is all kinds of insane. It's like someone told Samuel L. Jackson to play Octopus like Jim Carrey except blacker and more batshit loony. He has this obsessive hatred of eggs, dresses like a Nazi, a pirate, and a Japanese warrior, and melts a fucking kitten (for some reason, only the eyes are left, which I guess they're there as comedy because it doesn't seem like that serious a threat when two googly eyes are looking right at you).

So to conclude, it's a nice to look at, but don't look too long, or you might find that the originally pleasing apple is rotting and has some mutated AIDS that makes your dick fall off. The plot is old and poorly executed; the characters are bland and boring or completely batshit insane. I can't recall a musical score for the life of me, except for the music that pops up whenever the chest containing the Golden Fleece is opened. I guess they cocked that up and got the Musical Fleece instead or some bullshit. The dialogue is also pretty poor, with some particularly awful moments during which I actually considered exiting the theater and cockslapping the manager for letting this pollution out into the airwaves. It's a pretty awful movie, and only worth seeing if you're in an empty theater with your buddies to laugh obnoxiously at how bad it is.